What are the usual goals of a yard sale? Mostly it’s just to get rid of old stuff you don’t need anymore. Still, it also involves selling old stuff you didn’t know you had but realized could make a few good bucks.

The latter can actually be an interesting business model for lead generators.

A corporate-style yard sale doesn’t have to be literal. You’re not going to start selling old, legacy servers out on the front of your office building any time soon. Rather, it’s a new way of looking at your business and finding something that could also be sold alongside your current product lineup.

ContactDB is one example. The company started out selling data but not we’re also offering our own marketing and lead generation services. Where did they come from? Obviously, there wouldn’t be all this data if there weren’t any call centers or email marketers to do the job.

Logically, it’s a cost-effective way to expand diversify your value propositions. Of course, it’s no magic bullet. There are several factors involved when successfully marketing your own corporate yard sale:

Prospects weren’t sure you’d sell it – In its early days, the search engine Google and the social network Facebook weren’t yet introduced to the idea of making a business out of their tools. They just built them. But then, time goes by and the possibilities opened up before anyone realized it. Today both companies have a grip on the market purely because they’ve grown something really big in their garden. The same goes for your product. While you worked on an internal process or propriety piece of technology, your prospects have to be a bit unaware of any possibility to sell it.

Polish it real good – Just as you’d polish an old, mysterious ring you found in the attic, you should polish out all the kinks in your soon-to-be-new product/service. Pay close attention to customer feedback and how this secret product has already been affecting their current experience. Any problems you find could make its way when you launch it so start polishing now!

Market the changes as key features – The improvements you’ve made should be the highlight of your new offer. Suppose you’re in the healthcare business and you’ve decided to improve kinks in your home-grown EMR system. Competitors may have already made the same claim but at least you’ve had a good start on addressing what could’ve been a persistent problem. This would obviously make it easier to launch a product.

Selling something that you’ve long had shouldn’t be seen as some form of desperate move to increase revenue or an attempt to scam others with junk. Done right, doing a little corporate yard sale can help you present more value to potential prospects without adding to the cost.